Mooning over the Miami LGBT film festival

Sun, fun, movies, queer flamenco dancers: The Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival finished its ninth run Sunday night, May 6. Audiences were treated not only to a solid program of 29 features and a record 71 shorts, but the kind of ramped-up hospitality that’s put Miami in the top tier of the LGBT festival circuit.

Highlights on the flick front were Latin-themed pics, lesbian offerings, several premieres, and the PlanetOut Short Film Awards. Standout fiestas included the opening-night gala that lit up the Miami skyline in festival-theme orange, a "centerpiece" street fair, and plenty of after-parties to make this cinema celebration worth the ticket—and the trip. Over 120 out-of-town filmmakers attended, with lively post-screening Q&As adding a welcome dose of intellectual curiosity to the mix.

What better place than the fictional home of Nip/Tuck to premiere a film about the quest for eternal youth? Opening night brought The Picture of Dorian Gray—Oscar Wilde’s classic tale about youth and beauty obsession gone mad, updated by director Duncan Roy from the Victorian England setting of yore to 1980s New York City. David Gallagher, who plays Simon on 7th Heaven, stars as Gray in an adaptation that left the Miami audience sympathetic to its themes of vanity/aging/artifice and intrigued by its dark art-world setting, yet with nothing great to say. With any adaptation, if we’ve read the book, we're interested in whether we’re able to let all we've experienced in our imagination go and take in the story anew—will what we see on the screen be more compelling, or less? Roy’s Gray was indeed compelling, as it elicited strong love/hate reactions. And though Miami’s take was thumbs-down on the whole, Roy stood by his cinematic vision, citing the artistic risks he took and suggesting that people “read [Wilde’s] book, then they'll be able to appreciate the film.”

2 Minutes Later is that rare gay and lesbian film that’s actually gay and lesbian. Director Robert Gaston’s second feature is part mystery, part tale of unexpected friendship—a semi-closeted insurance adjuster hooks up with a no-nonsense lesbian private eye (who does her dicking-around in high heels) to solve the mysterious vanishing of his twin brother. So were boys and girls equally captivated? It's hard to say: Everyone enjoyed the pic that the Miami festival guide called "a happily queer CSI: Philadelphia," but it screened against The Gymnast—a strong lesbian draw that has nabbed several LGBT festival awards. To Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival programmer Kelly Burkhardt, who attended the Miami screening, Gaston’s low-budget caper with male and female queer leads is a festival programmer's delight: “Typically, it’s pulling teeth to get men and women into the same screenings. 2 Minutes Later is a welcomed change.”

For sex on the screen—specifically, straight porn–turned–lesbian style—there was Triple X Selects:The Best of Lezsploitation, a clip reel culled from several sexploitation films spanning the mid '60s to early '80s—think Bare Behind Bars or Daughters of Lesbos. The footage compiled by aficionado Michelle Johnson (a.k.a. DJ Triple X), featuring the likes of sinning nuns, Swedish wildcats, and sexed-up inmates, was originally created for a male audience but is now flipped for lesbian pleasure. What Lezsploitation does well is remind us that arousal is in the mind of the beholder, and that the production and consumption of erotic images is complicated subject matter. Something amazing about Lezsploitation was the contextualization by Johnson that accompanied the clips: She took the sex-versus-exploitation thread head-on, while emphasizing her love of the groovy soundtrack that inspired the clips to begin with. Also of note were—lest we forget—the women’s bodies that were once celebrated as sexy, with small breasts and pubic hair to boot. Wolfe Video will release Lezsploitation later in the year as part of its Vintage Classic Collection.

Hot Latin guys, love, sex, real estate: East Side Story, directed by Carlos Portugal, was a perfect fit for Miami. The film tells the tale of Diego, a closeted Latino working in his family’s Mexican restaurant, who falls in love with Wesley, a hunky closeted realtor. Others in the "Peliculas en Español" program included the U.S. premiere of Los Dos Lados de la Cama (TheTwo Sides of the Bed)—director Emilio Martinez-Lázaro’s sequel to The Other Side of the Bed, his last romp about modern relationships. Some characters from its forebear are finally ready to commit, but…their girlfriends have other thoughts in mind. For musical fans, bursts of song and dance accompany the narrative (far too many for my liking). The upbeat Madrid vibe and bisexual “love who you love” message makes the ride worth it.